Kukla's Korner Hockey

Category: Ottawa-Senators

When Ray Emery unveiled his new helmet yesterday, the Ottawa Senators organization held its collective breath.

Memories are still fresh of the firestorm Emery ignited two seasons ago, when he briefly donned a helmet carrying images of convicted rapist Mike Tyson.

So a great sense of relief washed over everyone when Emery’s new helmet was revealed to be carrying two images of The Greatest, Muhammad Ali, who was everything to boxing (and humanity) that Tyson wasn’t.

Not only is Paddock looking to get more of a contribution from McAmmond and Donovan, the duo of centre Chris Kelly (one goal in 13 games) and winger Antoine Vermette (one goal in 14) haven’t done anything to earn extra ice time, either.

“I’ve said from the start I don’t want to play (Alfredsson) that much, but you have to do that during the course of a game,” said Paddock. “The other side of it is you have to develop roles for other players and they have to develop roles within the team. I think we’re still somewhat struggling for that.

“We’re still trying to find guys to contribute to the play at a little bit higher level and a little bit better in certain situations. You can’t be a two- or three-line team. We’re still searching for contributions from the third and fourth line.”

“I don’t know if there’s anything specific at the moment. I’ve told teams we need to get healthy. We’ve said all along that it would be nice to have another forward who can score goals. But there doesn’t seem to be that person available right now. We’re just trying to find out what is out there.”

Murray said the answers mostly have to come from within.

“I’m not sure that trades do very much,” said Murray. “You may scare a person. You may eliminate a person or two from your lineup. I think we have a pretty good hockey team. You don’t want to make a change just for the sake of making a change. If that’s what it takes to stimulate this group, then I’d be pretty disappointed.

“We’ve got a good group here. We’ve obviously gotten away from our game. We’ve got too many guys worried about statistics rather than winning.”

“It’s all of our faults. It doesn’t matter if you’re getting points or you’re playing well. It’s every forward. It’s every defenceman and it’s both goalies.

“We’re in this together. I’ve said that the whole time. The only way we’re going to win is if everybody plays well and plays better. We’ve just got to raise our level of play so that we’re a better hockey club.”

To make matters worse, the Senators’ injury list is growing. Defenceman Anton Volchenkov could be out for an extended period after leaving the game with a hand injury after blocking a shot on the first shift.

While the Senators are fortunate Christoph Schubert was able to slide back and play on the blueline, losing Volchenkov is costly. He logs a lot of minutes and is usually assigned the job of shutting down the top players in the league with Jaromir Jagr and the New York Rangers visiting tomorrow at 2 p.m.

The Senators joined the New York Islanders winger for dinner Tuesday night because they apparently really do like him and not because there might have been a chance to see Comrie’s squeeze, singer/clothes designer/teen idol Hilary Duff.

“I’ve got a lot of friends in the NHL now,” joked Comrie, who made the Islanders his fifth NHL organization in seven years when he signed here as a free agent during the summer.

“Having an extra Top 6 forward allows for injuries and allows for a lot of things that happen like (Eaves and Alfredsson) being out,” Murray told the Sun. “That’s always the ideal scenario to be able to do that and we’re going to pursue that, without a doubt.

“However, we know full well that until teams are eliminated from the playoffs, we’re probably not going to be able to make many deals for that quality of a player.”

If Alfredsson does play under his contract through 2011-12, he will have earned a total of $26.6 million in salary (less any escrow) over the seven seasons since the lockout. Without the 24 per cent rollback, Alfredsson would have received $35 million during that time frame. So, including the $5 million lost from the 2004-05 season, the lockout cost Alfredsson $13.4 million in salary.

On top of that, Alfredsson has signing bonus payments in his contract and the lost rolled back amount is another $1.155 million.

In total, Alfredsson is potentially down more than $14.5 million. To make matters worse, it is worth pointing out that in August 2004 Alfredsson was getting $1.31 Canadian for every U.S. dollar earned and not the 98 or 99 cents he gets today.

Senators coach John Paddock on the goaltending of Martin Gerber last night…

from the Ottawa Citizen,

“I didn’t like the goals, it’s that simple,” he said, also referring to the sharp-angle goals from R.J. Umberger and Scott Hartnell earlier in the game. “Those kinds of saves have to be made. Routine saves have to be made. He has been doing that all year, he has been dong a good job for us all year and he has also made the spectacular saves. He’s just like half a dozen other guys on the team right now. He’s just not getting it done.

“I’m not happy with it at the moment, but I’m not overly concerned. You don’t go from having 13 wins and (one of the best) save percentages and just become bad. Those things happen. That will be turned around for sure.”